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ADDRESS 

UPON THE DEATH OF 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 



BY 



HON. NOAH DAVrs. 



*•■ nmm*mtK'jm*m iji.^ju i — wa— wc—i ismjemBtmam 



REMARKS <>J-' 



HON. R. S. BURROWS, 



ADDRESS 



HON. NOAH DAVIS 



ON THE OCCASION OF THE NATIONAL OBSEQUIES OF 



AT 



.A-XjBIOUnT, INT. "ST., 
April 19, 1865. 






R CHES T E U, N. V. 
C 1» TRACY & CO,, PRINTERS, EVENING EXPRESS OFFICE. 

1865. 




.8 

-rtrrtotTTr 



Albion, April '20, 1865. 
Hun. Noah Davis : 

Dear Sir: — The undersigned, a Committee for 
that purpose, respectfully reqifest that you will furnish the Address delivered 
by you on the occasion of the obsequies of President Lincoln, for publica- 
tion. 

J. M. Cornell, 

G. II. Sickels, 
H. J. Van Dusln. 
J. II. White, 
C. A. Harrington. 



Albion, April 20, 1805. 
Gentlemen . 

I do not feel at liberty to deny your request; but in 
putting the manuscript of my Address into your hands, I feel bound, in 
justice to myself to say, that it was written under great pressure as to time, 
while 1 was laboring under severe indisposition, and with no view to publi- 
cation. I do not think it proper to re-write it and thus furnish anything that 
was not spoken, and therefore hand you the manuscript precisely as delivered. 

1 am, &c, 

N. Davis. 
To C. A. IIakkinoton ami others, Committee. 



REMARKS OF HON. E, S. BURROAVK 



Friends \xd Fellow Citizens: — The occasion which has called us to- 
gether is one of nn ordinary character; and this fact is manifested by the 
insignia of mourning which 1 see suspended on these walls, and also by the 
expressions of solemnity and sadness which I sec on the countenances of those 
who are here assembled. I see before and around me men who entertain 
different political opinions, and among them several who were so unfortunate 
as to disapprove of some of the measures of political policy, and military 
necessity which were adopted by President Lincoln. Yet on the faces of all 
1 can see an expression of sadness which seems to say : We have experienced 

a great national calamity. The double crime of murder and treason lias I n 

committed by the same ruthless hand ! The Chief Magistrate of our nation 
has fallen, and when his life was most valuable to the public: has been mur- 
dered in the presence of his family — at a time and under circumstances when, 
perhaps, lie had the least reason to apprehend personal danger. 

A few days previous, when President Lincoln visited Richmond, the 
capital of the late rebellion, some solicitude was felt for his personal safety ; 
but after his return to Washington, and especially after his lenient policy 
relative to the rebel leaders had been made known, all this solicitude van- 
ished ; and when the news that he was murdered was flashed to us over the 
wires, if came like a clap of thunder in a (dear sky. 

It was said in olden time, that "whom the gods intend to destroy, thej 
first make mad ;" and if the miserable fanatic and his co-conspirators who 
assassinated President Lincoln supposed that, by so doing, they would im- 
prove the condition of the rebel leaders, they perpetrated a lamentable blun- 
der. 

It is eminently proper, whenever a great man, or a high official is 
struck down by the shafts of death in any form, that we should meei 
together) as we have met here to day, to express our sympathy for the neat 
relatives and friend- of tin- deceased in their bereavement — to deplore the 
loss sustained by the country in being deprived of the services ,,c the de^ 



ceased — to make mention of his public and his private virtue, and to recount 
his successes and his achievements. 

There is a gentleman here better qualified than myself who will speak to 
you on these points ; and I must content myself by saying, what I think all 
present will concur in — that President Lincoln was a man of kind and 
friendly heart, without malice or revenge — of honest and patriotic impulses, 
and of strong desires for the unity of our nation, and that his death is a 
great public calamity, and as such should be deplored by every patriot. 




ADDRESS. 



An ancient philosophy thought it to be possible, that 
man's body might be trained to a perfection that could defy 
the assaults of disease and the encroachments of age, and 
bis spirit to a purity that should lead it through a voluntary 
death to seek the society of the gods. 

A philosophy far truer is couched in the pathetic lan- 
guage found in one of the most beautiful poems of the 
Bible: "Man that is born of a woman, is of few days and 
full of trouble; he cometh forth as a flower, and is cut 
down; he flccth also as a shadow, and continueth not !" 

Illustrations of the instability of man and his affairs are 
of constant occurrence; but seldom, indeed, has there hap- 
pened one so marked in its character as this that has 
plunged a nation from the bights of exultation to the 
depths of grief. 

The anniversary of that day on which Christ was nailed 
to the cross, has long been of deep significance in religions 
history. Henceforth it is destined to similar significance in 
political annals. Last Good Friday was the fourth annual 
return of the day on which treason plucked down our flag 
from the walls of Fort Sumter. On that day, its few but 
intrepid defenders, in obedience to the voice of a victorious 
nation, unfurled that same flag over the ruins of Sumter 
and the desolations of Charleston; and it was while cele- 
brating this grandly poetic event, with a throbbing and 



thankful heart, that the head of the nation was struck 
down by the assassin of treason. 

These are to be historic events, to mark epochs in the 
history of our continent; and though the murder of Abra- 
ham Lincoln 

■ "is the bloodiest shame. 

The wildest savagery, the vilest stroke 
That ever wall-eyed wrath or staring rage 
Presented to the tears of soft remorse ; ' — 

yet it has embalmed his fame beyond the touch of decay or 
the tooth of time. 

" Treason has done its worst — nor steel, nor poison — 
Malice domestic — foreign levy — nothing- 
Can touch him further !" 

In the darker ages of the world, the assassination of 
reigning sovereigns was no uncommon event. It was 
usually the fruit of tyranny, ambition, or of zealous bigotry. 
The latest important instance in modern history is that of 
Paul I. of Russia, an execrable tyrant, who was murdered 
in 1801 by his own nobles. Prior to that time, this event 
had been so common in Russian history that its form of 
government has been wittily described as an "absolute 
despotism, tempered by assassination." Unsuccessful at- 
tempts of this crime have not been infrequent in modern 
days. French history furnishes numerous examples, several 
of which were aimed at Napoleon, and more than one at his 
present name-sake. 

One at least has been made by a desperate madman upon 
the present sovereign of Great Britain, the good Victoria. 
Our history has no example, unless one be found in the 
assault of a cashiered officer upon President Jackson, which 
was an outbreak of personal frenzy of no political signifi- 
cance. 



Farther hack in the barbarism of ideas, it was not deemed 
unchristian for sovereigns at war to oiler rewards for the 
destruction of antagonistic sovereigns. So in 1580, Phillip 
of Spain published a ban against William of Orange, sur- 
nanied the Silent, offering a reward of 10,000 crowns of 
gold and a patent of nobility to any one who should take 
his life; and in July, 1584, that Prince, the most illustrious 
of his age as a statesman, warrior and christian, was bru- 
tally murdered. His assassin was executed with terrible 
tortures; but Phillip enobled his family and gave them a 
portion of the estates of his victim. 

It has remained for the barbarism of slavery to repeat 
this appalling example in our own land. An enormous 
reward was offered last winter, through the public papers 
m|' Charleston for the assassination of President Lincoln. 
it was copied approvingly by the press of Richmond, and it 
was urged that the scheme might be carried out. The con- 
nection between the offered reward and the great crime 
remains yet to be developed; but the offer, as well as the 
crime, stand as evidence of the hellish instincts engendered 
by a war for slavery. 

Ordinarily the assassination of a Chief Executive, is the 
signal of revolution. So it was when Csesar fell under the 
daggers of his assassins. A civil war divided the empire of 
Rome between the profligate Antony and the cruel Octavi- 
ns. So when Charlotte Corday plunged her dagger into the 
brutal heart of Marat — it cleared the path for newer factions 
and greater crimes. And so it has often been amongst the 
cut-throat factions of Mexican and South American soi-disanl 
republics. 

For this reason, if no other, the news of the assagsina- 



tion of Lincoln will be a shock to Europe. They will 
regard it at first as a signal of Northern revolution and 
intestine strife. But little indeed, do they understand the 
true character of our institutions, who suppose that the 
existence of our Government depends upon the life of any 
man or the lives of any set of men. The People iii 1 r ; " 
Republic are the Government ! They constitute 
Nation ; and the Nation is immortal ! The death "of 
one servaut gives place to another, who is alike the repre- 
sentative of the same constituency, bound to the same 
duties, and subject to the same allegiance. And so it will 
prove. The shock of this murder of our Chief Exeeutive, 
which in other lands might shake thrones, overthrow prin- 
cipalities and disintegrate power, will fall harmless upon 
the shield of a constitution upheld by the hands and hearts 
of a mighty People. Let none despair of the Republic. 
God Omnipotent, who has laid his hand in loratk so heavily 
upon us, and is now bearing us safely through the Red Sea 
of our afflictions, has suffered this latest stroke to fall upon 
us that we might more clearly exhibit the moral grandeur 
of christianized and enlightened popular government. 

Of Abraham Lincoln, jxt'sonally, but little need be said. 
He was born on the 12th of February, 1800, in Hardin 
County, Kentucky. His early life was spent in poverty and 
toil. His father moved into the wilds of Indiana when 
Abraham was eight years oi' age. There the next twelve 
years of his life were spent in the same log house, having a 
single room below and another above. His mother, who 
was a pious woman, taught him to read — the bight of her 
ambition being that he should be able to read the Bible. 
In J880 his father moved to Illinois. Here he soon engaged 



9 

in business for himself, improving every opportunity to 

pursue his studies. In this he was so diligent that he wrote 
out a synopsis of every book he read and thus fixed it in his 

memory. Ho learned surveying and won a good reputation 
in that business. In 1834 he was elected to the Legislature. 
' i the close of the session he commenced the study of law. 
836 was admitted to practice, and in 1837 moved to 
Springfield and formed a co-partnership, and commenced the 
practice of law. In this pursuit he was eminently success- 
ful, and won an enviable reputation both for abilit}' and 
integrity, lie was three times elected to the State Legis- 
lature; and in 1847 took a seat in Congress, lie there 
distinguished himself by his advocacy of the Wilmot Pro- 
viso and of various efforts to abolish the slave trade in the 
District of Columbia. The great struggle which grew out 
of the Nebraska bill, and the repeal of the Missouri Com- 
promise in 1854, found Mr. Lincoln in private life, engaged 
in the practice of his profession. 

He threw himself with all the vigor and energy of his 
intellect into that struggle. On two occasions, he met iu 
discussion, the lamented Jurtgr*- Douglas, one of the ablest 
men in debate which our country has ever produced. The 
friends of each claimed a triumph in those duels of argu- 
ment. The campaign resulted iu the success of the anti- 
Nebraska party. Mr. Lincoln was entitled to an election to 
the Senate, in place of Gen. Shields, which had been the 
palm of the contest, but he generously gave way for Judge 
Trumbull, who was elected as the colleague of Senator 
Douglas. In 1858, the Senatorial contest between Douglas 
and Lincoln, in which the latter gained his national reputa- 
tion as an orator and statesman, took place. Senator Doug- 



10 

las, with a chivalric devotion to his principles, had refused 
to follow the Administration in its support of the Lecomp- 
ton constitution. This gave him a strong advantage in the 
sympathy of many of its leading opponents. The contest 
was fought out, "hilt to hilt," but with generous courtesy. 
Douglas gained his election, hut Lincoln carried a hand- 
some majority in the popular vote. It is praise enough, for 
both these distinguished men, to say that no man can rise 
from a perusal of their debates without pronouncing them 
the foremost efforts of their character in the records of this 
country. This glance at the private history of Mr. Lincoln 
brings us nearly to the time of his nomination to the Presi- 
dency. Thenceforward he became, by position, the fore- 
most man of the nation, and in that capacity his policy and 
conduct are to be considered. 

In his private life, Mr. Lincoln was pre- eminently pure 
and unsullied. His uniform integrity of conduct and pur- 
pose won him the popular title of " Honest Old Abe " long 
before his prominent connection with national politics. 
Those elements of great ness t hat must stand by him in the 
presence of God — thar gtteate on,; of spirit in the domestic 

A ■ 

circle and in social lite — that love of truth, ot benevolence, 

temperance, justice and humility — that charity towards all 
men, and piety to God and his religion — these adorn and 
dignify his name. 

In all these virtues of the soul he stands before the world 
a noble man. 

As an example of what the institutions of Free Govern- 
im-iii may do for the poor and humble, Mr. Lincoln's life 
is invaluable. It teaches, as the lives of others of our great 
men have often taught, that none is so poor or so lowly in 



11 

station, that by diligence, perseverance, integrity ana right 
conduct, he may not hope to rise to the highest pbStS of 

honor. 

Bnt the true value of his example and character consists 
in this. Youth may study it with safety: Human great- 
ness too often accompanies human vice. In emulating the 
former, the young are betrayed into the latter. But the 
study of the character and example of Abraham Lincoln 
may lead many to virtue and honor — none to vice and 
eternal death. 

lie possessed elasticity of spirits and a keen sense of the 
humorous in an unusual degree. These were often thought 
to detract from the dignity of his character and place ; hut 
in the great responsihilities that have rested upon him, 
they doubtless broke the force of cares and anxieties that 
would have crushed men of a harder and perhaps higher 
nature. The readiness with which the bow springs back 
from its tension is the best evidence of its elasticity and 
endurance. 

"His intellect was keen, emphatically logical in its action, 
and capable of the clearest and most subtle analysis ; and 
he used language for the purpose of stating in the simplest 
form the precise idea which he wished to convey." 

He had a remarkable faculty of putting things so as to 
command the attention and assent of common people ; and 
this, while it detracted at times from the gracefulness and 
style of his state papers, gave them remarkable clearness 
and force. He could condense into a single sentence, a 
flash of light, as it were, that exposed to the bottom the 
fallacy or falsity of the argument he assailed. Many in- 
stances of this might be cited, but one from his debate with 
Douglas in 1854 must suffice. 



12 

Mr. Douglas claimed to have voted for the repeal of the 
Missouri Compromise, because his great principle of Popu- 
lar Sovereignty required that the people of Kansas and 
Nebraska should govern themselves as they were well able 
to do ; and from this he deduced their right to establish 
slavery there if they chose. The fallacy of the deduction 
was thus exposed by Mr. Lincoln : 

"My distinguished friend," said he ; "says that it is an 
insult to the emigrants of Kansas and Nebraska to suppose 
that they are not able to govern themselves. We must not 
slur over an argument of this kind because it happens to 
tickle the car. It must be met and answered. I admit 
that the emigrant to Kansas and Nebraska is competent to 
govern himself, but I deny his right to govern any other 2)crson 
without that person 's consents 

Thus, in a sentence, the whole question was brought to 
the touchstone of democratic principles, which hold that 
the right to govern has its only foundation in the consent 
of the governed. 

We have been apt to sneer at the state papers of Mr. 
Lincoln because of their difference from those of his pre- 
decessors ; but it is remarkable how differently they are 
regarded in other countries. 

Speaking of his late inaugural address, which breathes 
throughout such a tone of humble dependence on God — 
such a trust in the infinite wisdom of His purposes and 
iudgments — such a manly reliance on the loj'al heart of the 
nation — such sweet charity and gentle forbearance towards 
the public enemy, that one might almost think it was 
written under the impending shadow of the throne before 
which he was so soon to stand, a prominent English paper 



13 

says: " We can detect no Longer the rude, illiterate mould 

of a village lawyer's thought, but find i( replaced by a grasp 
of principle, a dignity of manner, and a solemnity of pur- 
pose which would have been unworthy neither of Hampden 
nor of Cromwell, while his gentleness and generosity of 
feeling towards his toes are almost greater than we should 
expect from either of them." 

Posterity will vindicate the assertion in a way which we 
are now unable to do, that no President of the United 
States, save George Washington, ever won such confidence 
in his integrity of heart and purpose, such a firm belief in 
his desire to discharge his whole duty, and so much of per- 
sonal affection among the poor and humble, as Abraham 
Lincoln. 

It was not because he was President, alone, that his 
death lias drowned a land in tears, but because every man, 
whatever he may have heretofore said or done, Keels in his 
heart of hearts that when Abraham Ltx< <>lx died, he lost a 
friend — his country a lover — whose sole aim and highest 
ambition were to preserve pure and bright for us and our 
children the free institutions that have made us blessed and 
happy. 

How wide is the difference between this state of feeling 
and that manifested by many a few months ago. With 
what bitterness and fierceness was lie assailed during the 
late campaign. What crimes were not laid to his charge? 
Treason, murder, felonies and misdemeanors, more than 
enough to have consigned a thousand names to eternal 
infamy ! I allude to this for no purposes of reproach. Our 
hearts are better than our tongues, and few men in the 
almost frantic passion of partisan strife believe in the truth 



14 

of the rude and cruel accusations they make. Not one in a 
thousand of those who were loudest in theiltwHd denuncia- 
tions, would hesitate to stand to-day by the side of the 
bleeding corpse of Abraham Lincoln and say, " thou wert 
not guilty !" My sole purpose is to deduce from this wide 
contrast the solemn lesson so much needed by us all — to 
cultivate the amenities of life — to restrain our passions in 
our party contests, and remember that evil words are far 
better to be unsaid than to be repented of! 

Besides, who knows how far the assassins of Lincoln may 
not have been fired to their unholy deed by these rancor- 
ous accusations, made with no such intent it is true, but if 
believed by weak minds, unhappily likely to induce the 
thought that it would be God's justice to remove such 
unhallowed villainy from the earth ! In the presence of 
this great calamity let us resolve, my friends, to keep watch 
and ward in the future over the fierce and useless bitterness 
of party strife. 

But there is a grief in the land for the death of Lincoln 
to which allusion has not been made. A race on whom his 
murder will fall with more than the stunning force of a 
father's loss. However we may estimate the intellect of 
that race, we know it to be largely endued with those 
affections that prove our divine origin by linking man to 
man, and man to God. There is no human breast on earth 
in which there does not constantly burn a longing for some- 
thing better in the future. The long repressed aspirations 
of the slave have fastened on Abraham Lincoln as the very 
Christ of their freedom. As the news of his death sweeps 
over the South, and is borne from cabin to cabin, what a cry 
of woe — what a wail of agony, will burst from the frightened, 
crushed hearts of that humble race ! 



15 

But not in vain! No other requiem for thy soul, 
Lincoln! / ftnv.half so sweet as that, will reach the car of 
the Eternal Mercy ! 

Mr. Lincoln entered upon the Presidency under circum- 
stances of the most extraordinary character. A number of 
the Southern States had already seceded. The ('on federate 
Government was fully organized. Its President and Vice- 
President had been inaugurated on the 18th of February, 
1861. President Buchanan had adopted the opinion thai 
Congress had uo power to carry on war to prevent a threat- 
ened violation of the Union, or enforce an acknowledgment 
of the supremacy of the authority of the CTnited States. 
The Secretary of War (the infamous Floyd), while resting 
under his oath to support the Constitution, had prevented 
the re-inforcement and sending of supplies to Southern 
forts, and by his order Northern armories had been stripped 
of arms to deposit in Southern arsenals. The public mind 
was in a state of the wildest confusion and uncertainty. 
Conspiracies to assassinate the President elect and prevent 
his inauguration were on foot. Mr. Lincoln went to the 
capital with his life- in his hands, determined to devote 
himself to avert war, prevent disunion and maintain the 
constitution and laws. His inaugural address was the most 
solemn and touching appeal for peace and union that ever 
tell from the lips of any man. lie disavowed, in the most 
solemn manner, all design to interfere with the institutions 
of the South. 

"I have no purpose," he said, "directly or indirectly to 
interfere with the institution of shivery in the States where 
it exists. I believe L have no lawful right to do bo, and I 
have no inclination to do so. * * The property, 



16 

peace and .security of no section are to be in anywise en- 
dangered by the now incoming Administration. I add, 
too, that all the protection which consistently with the 
constitution and the laws can be given, will be cheerfully 
given to all the States when lawfully demanded, for what- 
ever cause, as cheerfully to one section as to another." 

lie discussed the right of secession, showing that it could 
not exist. He declared his solemn duty to maintain the 
Union in accordance with his oath of office; but "in doing 
this," he said, "there need be no bloodshed or violence, 
and there shall be none unless it is forced upon the national 
authority." He appealed to the seceding States, by every 
tie that had bound the Union, to pause in their course. 
"Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ulti- 
mate justice of the people ?" he cried. " Is there any better 
or ecpial hope in the world? In our present differences, is 
either party without faith of being in the right? If the 
Almighty Ruler of nations with his eternal truth and justice 
be on your side of the North, or yours of the South, that 
truth and that justice will surely prevail by the judgment 
of this great tribunal of the American people." 

He lingered with intensest earnestness in his appeal : 
" The Government will not assail you. You can have no 
conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. * * * 
I am loth to close. We are not enemies — but friends. 
We must not be enemies. Though passion may have 
strained, it must not break the cords of our affection." 

There is no Executive document on record that breathes 
such intense anxiety to maintain peace — to prevent dis- 
cord — to spare 1 bloodshed and violence. It is redolent 
throughout with the generous and gentle spirit of the man. 



17 

We all know what followed. Unable to extorl a recog- 
nition of their independence, the Confederacy resolved 
upon war. They tired upon Sumter. They forced ita 
surrender, and dishonored the Flag of the Union. The 
subsequent history of the war is before you. It is written 
in blood, and in the tears and cries of orphans and widows. 
This is no place to recount its disasters and defeats ; nor its 
victories and triumphs. "Mr. Lincoln has persevered 
through all," (I quote the language of a British writer), 
''without ever giving way to anger, or despondency, or 
exultation, or popular arrogance, or sectarian fanaticism or 
caste prejudice, visibly growing in force of character, in 
self possession, and in magnanimity." lie has maintained 
at all times an equanimity of mind and purpose that would 
seem to have drawn its strength from something higher 
than human sources. The personal insults heaped upon 
him by the enemy — the epithets, the taunts and derision, 
have never been paralleled. They have never swerved him 
from the straight line of his duty nor led him to one act of 
cruelty or retaliation. He has met them with silent con- 
tempt! Napoleon was driven to frantic anger by far less 
insulting attacks of the British press. Nor for all the 
cruelties of the rebels — for the brutal assassinations of Fort 
Pillow and Olustee — for the prolonged murder by starva- 
tion of our men in southern prisons, has he ever enacted 
one outrage upon humanity for retaliation. Call it weak- 
ness or childish tenderness, or a Christ like spirit of forgive- 
ness, history will record the fact, that through four years of 
Avar, Abraham Lincoln, under mountains of insult, under 
cruelties more barbarous than the tortures of savages, under 
goads that have sometimes made the people plead for ven- 
3 



18 

geance, has never given way to one impulse of revenge, nor 
ordered one act upon the foe that would tarnish the fame of 
a Christian soldier. 

Dearly as he loved freedom — profoundly impressed as he 
was with the crime of slavery, he has done no act in regard 
to it save such as he believed the exigencies of war demand- 
ed for the suppression of the rebellion. 

Said he to Gov. Bramlette, in April, 1SG4 : "I am natur- 
ally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. 
I cannot remember when I did not so think and feel, and 
yet I have never understood that the Presidency conferred 
upon me an unrestricted right to act officially upon this 
judgment and feeling. * * * My oath forbade me, 
practically to indulge my primary abstract judgment on the 
moral question of slavery. * * * And I aver that to 
this day I have done no official act in mere deference to my 
abstract judgment and feeling on slavery. * * * I was, 
in my best judgment, driven to the alternative of either 
surrendering the Union and the Constitution with it, or of 
laying strong hands upon the colored clement. I chose the 
latter." 

His whole conduct on this rpicstion proves the truth of 
this assertion. When Fremont attempted military emanci- 
pation, he forbade it. When General Cameron, a little 
later, recommended the arming of the colored men, he 
declined to concur in it. When Gen. Hunter afterwards 
proclaimed emancipation in the department of South Caro- 
lina, he revoked it. Foreseeing its ultimate necessity, he 
forewarned the rebellion by his hundred days proclamation 
to lay down its arms or emancipation would be pro- 
claimed. So tender was he of his oath, that he would do 



19 

no act in respect to slavery not necessary, in his judgment, 
to maintain the Government and not justified by the laws 
of war. 

It is wrong to his memory to say that he foughl this war 
for a single moment for mere purposes of abolition. Yet 
he felt himself on this subject to be an instrument in the 
hands of God, and was at all times ready to say, as he did 
in a communication already alluded to: "If God now wills 
the removal of a great wrong, and wills also, that we of the 
North as well as you of the South, shall pay fairly for our 
complicity in that wrong, impartial history will find therein 
new causes to attest and revere the justice and goodness of 
G.»d." 

His policy of Emancipation needs no new vindication. It 
was just in itself and has been justified by events. It has 
strengthened our armies by enlarging their forces and 
diminishing their labors. It has given us a loyal agricul- 
tural population at the South, and thus enabled our armies 
to cut loose from their bases of supplies and march hundreds 
of miles through the very heart of the Confederacy. It has 
prevented foreign recognition and interference by so touch- 
ing the hearts of men everywhere as to ally them to the 
cause of liberty. 

Time forbids a detailed defence of the administration of 
Mr. Lincoln. That it made mistakes — nay, blunders, per- 
haps, maybe conceded; but men will never agree as to what 
they were. Posterity will not fail to do him the justice to 
remember that he fought a rebellion which was altogether 
outside of Tin: Constitution, and that if he ever stepped 
beyond the verge of that instrument, it was with the single 
aim and honest purpose to "preserve, maintain, and de- 
fend " it. 



'20 

On the fourth day of March last, when President Lincoln 
entered upon the second term of his office, he doubtless 
felt that the hour of national triumph was near at hand ; 
but there was no tone of exultation in his inaugural address. 
"With high hopes of the future," he said; "no prediction 
in regard to it is ventured." 

"The Almighty has his own purposes," was still his 
language in that great hour of personal triumph ; and he 
closed with words, which, under the circumstances, are 
incomparable in their sublime beauty : " With malice 
towards none — with charity for all — with firmness in the 
right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive to finish 
the work we are in — to bind up the nation's wounds, and 
care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his 
widow and his orphans — and to do all that may serve to 
achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among our- 
selves, and with all nations." 

When the legions of Grant swept the rebel government 
and its army flying from their capital, Lincoln was at the 
front ready to enter Richmond — but not to glut his ven- 
geance — not to gloat over a fallen foe; but to build up, to 
re-instate, to pardon. There was in his heart but one thing 
inexorably doomed to die — and that was slavery. Even 
that was sentenced only by an all-governing love of hu- 
manity. Toward all things else his heart was full of 
mercy. Perhaps he would not have held the shield of his 
mercy over all, to ward off the sword of justice, but there 
breathed no loyal man who would have gone further in 
clement compassion for the fallen traitors or made them 
better terms. But he is slain ! 



21 

"The tyrannous- and bloody ad is done — 
The most arch deed of piteous massacre 
That c\ er 3 el this land was guiltj of!" 

And that tall form, and beaming eve, and kindly smile, and 
gentle heart, are crushed, silent, sunk in death. 

The grave opens to receive his body, but immortality has 

rescued his tame. There be they who hear me now who 
will live to see the day when the name and fame of Abra- 
ham Lincoln will stand second to but one in the annals of 
the nation. Its father and founder first: he who saved and 
crowned it with universal liberty, next. 

Let grief have its way, and then give way to justice. 
We will have no wild revenge — no indiscriminate slaugh- 
ter — nothing that shall stain the page of history. But we 
will have justice. Justice, stern and inflexible, but true to 
herself and true to humanity. 

First at the bar of justice, as the author of this crime, I 
arraign Slavery. From her hell-engendered womb have 
sprung treason, civil war, murders most foul, and lastly 
this appalling assassination. Where else on earth dwells 
there such a spirit as she has given birth to in the South. 
A spirit that poisons wells ; that butchers the wounded and 
helpless; that massacres prisoners; that makes drinking 
cups ot'dead men's skulls, and smoking pipes and woman's 
ornaments of their hones ; that curdles the milk of human 
kindness in woman's breast, and makes her a fiend ; and 
changes the church of Christ to "a huge translation of 
hypocrisy." 

Throughout all the North, it is impossible to find one 
woman who has failed, when occasion demanded, to treat a 
wounded rebel with the kind and tender sympathy of 



woman's nature. But what wounded Union soldier in a 
Southern hospital has failed to feel the taunts, the scoffs 
and jeers, the base inhumanity of beings in the form of 
woman. But what tongue or pen can describe the awful 
murder by the slow tortures of starvation and exposure, of 
thirty thousand prisoners of war? In a country, too, so 
tilled with plenty that the army of Gen. Sherman fed itself 
to fatness while on its rapid march from Atlanta to Savan- 
nah. The barbarity of the ancients, and the barbarous 
tribes of modern savages enslaved prisoners and forced them 
to menial labors ; but never before has the history of the 
world seen the policy adopted of shutting thousands of 
prisoners of war in open pens and deliberately starving 
them to gaunt uselessness or horrible deaths. 

Summon the witnesses of this gigantic crime from Bell 
Isle, Thunder Castle, and the Libby prison, under the eye 
of Lee and the Confederate Government — the unsheeted 
dead — and let them speak of the guilt of this inhuman 
spirit. Nay, let the gaunt and diseased skeletons now 
walking in our midst open their hollow eyes and almost 
rattling jaws, to tell the awful tale ! 

I recount not the black man's wrongs. These are the 
things Slavery has done to the white man. And n )w that 
she has crowned her iniquity by the murder of the Presi- 
dent, shall we hesitate as to her doom? No ! Humanity, 
justice, mercy, bid her die ! We must leave no root nor 
seed of that infernal demon in American soil, but extirpate 
them utterly and forever. 

Next I arraign for the assassination of Abraham Linlcon, 
the leaders of this rebellion. Their blood-guiltiness is be- 
yond precedent. The blood of a hall million slaughtered 



23 

men cries from the ground to Heaven against them. The 
blood of Lincoln may not be traced directly to their hands, 
but it is the legitimate child of their crimes. They in- 
spired, if they have not advised the <\>i-<\. I will not speak 
of them with hated breath. There may be those vr^ly to 
pardon them — to bring them hack to place and power — who 
would gladly see their civil head again on his plantations 
surrounded by his thousand slaves, or once more in the 
Senate at Washington : and their military chief re-instated 
to his estates and his Conner high command in our army. 
Great God ! If this shall ever be, will not the fallen heroes 
of a hundred battles, and the murdered victims of the 
Southern prison-pens start up in their graves to cry: ""W as 
it for this we died ?" Away with this mawkish sensibility. 
These false notions of right and wrong. This confounding 
of a treason that has drenched the land in blood and tears. 
with the mere mistakes of a political action. But let there 
be no fears. The strong man whom this awful crime hae 
summoned to the Presidency, will, under God. prove equal 
to the emergency. "Let it he engraved on every heart,*' 
he says ; " that treason shall suffer its penalty. The people 
must understand it is the blackest of crimes and will surely 
be punished." 

The leaders in this great Treason are not even within the 
scope of the sweet plea of Christ. "Father, forgive them. 
for they know- not what they do.*' Alas! too well these 
guilty traitors knew what they did. The kindest leniency— 
the gentlest treatment for their deluded followers — but for 
them let it be remembered that "mercy but murders, par- 
doning; those who kill." 



24 ** 

■ 
We cannot be too deeply thankful for the preservation of 

the life of that venerable statesman, the Secretary of State. 
Languishing on a bed of Buffering from the wounds of an 
accident that had already brought him to the gates of death, 
the merciless dagger of treason sought him out even there. 
But he is saved — spared yet longer I trust to guide our 
affairs of state with foreign powers, and to maintain that 
lofty standard of justice and right with which he has hon- 
ored and dignified the land. 

My friends, we have a solemn duty before us. Let us 
resolve to pursue it with undivided hearts. It is simply to 
stand by the Government of our country ; to maintain it in 
its integrity and purity ; and to hand it to our children, as 
our fathers gave it to us, rich in the clustering fruitage of 
its innumerable blessings. 

We are rising, a strong and triumphant nation, from the 
trials and afflictions through which we have been passing, 
a more powerful, a freer, and let us hope, a better people. 
Over the dead body of our murdered President let us clasp 
hands and swear to maintain and defend the good govern- 
ment God has given us, forever, against treason within and 
foes without. 



